Medical Bulletin 30/May/2023

Here are the top medical news for the day:

Blood biomarker to predict future Alzheimer’s disease

Why do some people develop Alzheimer’s disease while others don’t? And, even more puzzlingly, why do many individuals whose brains are chock-full of 1 toxic amyloid aggregates-a telltale sign of Alzheimer’s brain pathology-never go on to develop Alzheimer’s-associated dementias?

2University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers appear to have found the answer. Star-shaped brain cells called astrocytes are key to swaying the pendulum in Alzheimer’s disease progression, shows new game-changing research published today in Nature Medicine.

Reference:

Astrocyte reactivity influences amyloid-β effects on tau pathology in preclinical Alzheimer’s disease,Nature Medicine, DOI 10.1038/s41591-023-02380-x

Novel blood serum assay to diagnose neurodegenerative diseases

Synucleinopathies are a group of neurodegenerative diseases caused by the abnormal accumulation α-synuclein, a protein normally found in the brain and neurons. Incorrect folding of α-synuclein leads to formation of ‘seeds’, which attract more α-synuclein proteins to form larger clumps. Although, α-synuclein seeds have been found in various tissues and blood of patients with synucleinopathies, its potential as a biomarker is ambiguous.

Recently, in a study published in Nature Medicine Japanese researchers present a novel assay that can efficiently detect α-synuclein seeds from a patient’s serum.

Reference:

Propagative α-synuclein seeds in the serum of patients with synucleinopathies,Nature Medicine, DOI 10.1038/s41591-023-02358-9 

Underlying genetic risks for a type of heart attack largely affecting younger women revealed

Research led by the1 National Institute for Health and Care Research,2 Leicester Biomedical Research Centre and3 Universite Paris Cite, and supported by worldwide partners has identified new genes that are associated with an increased risk of a type of heart attack primarily affecting 4young to middle-aged women.

5SCAD – or Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection - is when a bruise or bleed occurs in the wall of a coronary artery, cutting off the blood to part of the heart. This leads to a heart attack. Unlike other types of heart attack, SCAD is most common in women under the age of 60 and is a leading cause of6 heart attacks around the time of pregnancy. Furthermore, people who have had a SCAD tend to be generally healthy and SCAD can sometimes happen more than once.

Reference:

Genome-wide association meta-analysis of spontaneous coronary artery dissection identifies risk variants and genes related to artery integrity and tissue-mediated coagulation,Nature Genetics,DOI 10.1038/s41588-023-01410-1